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Every years, McAfee Labs produces a list of predictions relating to computer security for the next 12 months. Last year (PDF) they said Anonymous would have to reinvent itself, and that there would be an overall increase in online hacktivism. This year’s report (PDF) is not as optimistic for the hacking collective. “Too many uncoordinated and unclear operations have been detrimental to its reputation. Added to this, the disinformation, false claims, and pure hacking actions will lead to the movement’s being less politically visible than in the past. Because Anonymous’ level of technical sophistication has stagnated and its tactics are better understood by its potential victims, the group’s level of success will decline.” That’s not to say they think hacktivism itself is on the decline, though: “Meanwhile, patriot groups self-organized into cyberarmies and spreading their extremist views will flourish. Up to now their efforts have had little impact (generally defacement of websites or DDoS for a very short period), but their actions will improve in sophistication and aggressiveness.” The report also predicts that malware kits will lead to an “explosion in malware” for OS X and mobile, but that Windows 8 will be the next big target.

MojoKid writes “During the Day Two keynote address at Intel Developer’s Forum, Renee James, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Intel’s Software & Services Group, talked about software development, security and services in an ‘age of transparent computing.’ During the security-centric portion of the keynote, James brought out a rep from Intel’s McAfee division to show off a beta release of their McAfee Social Protection app. If you’re unfamiliar, McAfee Social Protection is a soon to be released app and browser plug-in for Facebook that gives users the ability to securely share their photos. As it stands today, if you upload a photo to Facebook, anyone viewing that photo can simply download it or take a screen capture and alter or share it wherever they want, however they want. With McAfee Social Protection installed though, users viewing your images will not be able to copy or capture them. In quick testing, various attempts with utilities like Hypersnap, Snagit or a simple print screen operation to circumvent the technology only resulted in a black screen appearing in the grab. Poking around at browser image caches resulted in finding stored images that were watermarked with the McAfee Security logo.”

nk497 writes “Intel has set up a team of McAfee researchers to protect computer systems in cars, hiring Barnaby Jack — the researcher who forced ATMs to spit out cash and cause medical pumps to release lethal doses of insulin. Bruce Snell, a McAfee executive who oversees his company’s research on car security, said the car industry was concerned about the potential for cyber attacks because of the frightening repercussions. ‘If your laptop crashes you’ll have a bad day, but if your car crashes that could be life threatening,’ he said. ‘I don’t think people need to panic now. But the future is really scary.’ The move comes as Ford and other car makers start to invest in ways to keep car code secure.”

First time accepted submitter rebelwarlock writes “McAfee lives in Belize and he says that he has become a target of the Gang Suppression Unit. He says the GSU came busting into his research facility in Orange Walk, killed his dog, took his passport, handcuffed him and arrested him on a bogus weapons charge. McAfee says he’s a victim because he didn’t donate money to a known U.D.P. Orange Walk politician.”

Should you be concerned about mobile malware? There are reports of new bugs and exploitations every month and there is a general raising wariness among mobile consumers that their phones could be the target of spammers and malicious hackers. Make no mistake, the bad guys want access to your phone. It it really a problem if you exercise common sense?

Security in almost all of its forms comes down to common sense. If you practice common sense, you can thwart almost all of the would-be attempts to gain access to your personal life, be it your home, apartment, PC or smartphone. Security company McAfee came out with five common sense precautions for mobile users to keep their users safe. We have a few of our own. Check them out below.

Here are McAfee’s five security tips:

Be aware: It may not be out there to get you right now, but know that it exists and that a lapse of judgment could come back to haunt you.

Research apps and publishers: McAfee says to download broadly used apps that have good user ratings and a lot of reviews. It is akin to making sure you walk home in a well-lit area.

Use reputable app stores: You never really know what is going to sneak into a third-party app store. The Apple App Store and Android Market are sort of the app repositories of record. The App Store can be trusted to be almost 100% free of malware while the Android Market has done a better job of cleaning itself up after the DroidDream debacle earlier this year.

Check permissions: When you download an app, it tells you exactly what it is going to do. See an app for Mark Twain quotes that requests access to your calendar, SMS messaging and contacts? Given the nature of the app, it probably shouldn’t be doing those things. If an app’s permissions seem suspicious, do not download the app until you have gone back and done your research.

Install antivirus: This one is probably a little self-serving coming from a security company (that is owned by Intel), but it also fits in with the above tip. Mobile security apps will look at an app’s permissions and check the app to see if it is actually doing what it says it is going to do. If it is not, a warning will pop up saying that the app is suspicious. Norton from Symantec and Lookout are both good options for Android.

In addition to McAfee’s tips, here are a few of our own:

Pay attention: Do not go downloading apps in third-party markets willy-nilly. Check the URL of the page you are downloading from and make sure that it makes a semblance of sense. Sometimes it is the little things that you would have seen if you paid attention that end up hurting the most when you do not follow up.

Trust no one: That includes the security companies. Every half year and or so the security companies come out with new data about the big, bad world of scary malware. Why do they do this? So you will download their offerings to get rid of that malware. Take a step back and ask yourself what the problem really is and find a way to solve it using your own recognizance.

Common Sense: What do you do when you leave the house? You lock the door. When on a bike, you make sure to have a good lock for when you need to park it. You do not run down railroad tracks that have a high frequency of trains. You do not purposefully endanger yourself in the real world, take that approach to digital.

How do you protect your smartphone or tablet? Let us know in the comments.

nk497 writes “British ISPs have been told by the government to offer their customers parental control systems to block content like gambling sites and pornography, but the McAfee system used by BT and Sky leaves the tough censoring decisions to a small group of barely-trained students. While much of the categorization work is done using an automated system, decisions on whether porn is ‘hardcore’ or merely ‘erotica,’ or whether a page contains hate speech, is left to a team of five to ten people with a day of training — and the job is apparently popular with students. McAfee doesn’t publish the list of sites it hands to ISPs to block, making it difficult to see if your own site has been misclassified.”

itwbennett writes “Mozilla is advising Firefox users to disable McAfee’s ScriptScan software, saying that it could cause ‘stability or security problems.’ ScriptScan, which ships with McAfee’s VirusScan antivirus program, is designed to keep Web surfer’s safe by scanning for any malicious scripting code that might be running in the browser. But according to Mozilla it has an unintended side-effect: It can cause Firefox to crash… a lot.”

Orome1 writes “Cybercriminals know how to evade current operating systems-based security, demanding a new paradigm – security beyond the operating system. On that note, McAfee demonstrated the workings of its new McAfee DeepSAFE technology at the Intel Developer Forum on Tuesday. Co-developed with Intel, it allows McAfee to develop hardware-assisted security products to take advantage of a ‘deeper’ security footprint. It sits beyond the operating system and close to the silicon, and by operating beyond the OS, it provides a direct view of system memory and processor activity.”